She was owned/operated by E-Ships (formerly Farrel Lines, I believe) as late as February 2007 transporting military cargo from the Persian Gulf region through Suez into Turkey for transhipment. In feb '07 she suffered an engineering casualty and was towed into Aden, Yemen--the fist U.S.-flag ship entering that port since the USS Cole attack. We were under contract for maritime security services and put a Specialist on board withing 18 hours of the VP of Ops phone call. Our guy, a retired Navy SEAL, coordinated the security for arrival, off-loading of sensitive military cargo in into a secure area, crew security, security of the vessel during repairs, on-load and sailing in less than a week. I would run into the Captain from time to time at MITAGS and he would reminisce about that little adventure fondly. It was one of our best low-key and successful operations to that date as well. I believe she was scrapped shortly thereafter.

My father Ralph D. Warren Jr., out of Mass Maritime Academy, worked for American Export Lines then Farrel then Costa (Operations). I have the original maiden-voyage announcement poster for this ship signed by the Captain Hector Bravo. As a kid I remember going to the docks in New Jersey and seeing these massive vessels. I remember the seeing the side of the first "ro-ro" ships going down and cargo being driven off the boats. That must have been the beginning of the end for ships like the Argonaut.

These Bath Maine-built container ships were the state-of-the-art when the first ones were built in 1968. However, by 1979, when the Argonaut was built, the design was already becoming outdated. Farrell Lines' old S.S. Argonaut was one of the last steamships ever built. When she was finally laid up in 2006 she was probably one of the last steamers still operating anywhere in the world. The first of the class, the S.S. Sea Witch, was involved in a horrendous collision with the tanker ESSO Brussels in New York Harbor in 1973.